A uh "funny" story...
Its been a couple of years and I believe that some of the players have moved on to a different role, but its a true story none the less. But take it with a grain of salt. After I left IBM, I was involved in the local user group. On a con-call with IBM and some of the other local user group volunteers, we were looking for a way to increase awareness and improve the local group's membership. We wanted to be able to reach out and talk to as many of the local users as possible. The biggest issue is that we didn't know who, outside the regular users were using Informix products. IBM has this database called AAS. This is the database used by support to determine if you are entitled to support when you call in to the 800 help line. It would be trivial to go to support and get the contact information on all of the customers who have a physical plant in the Chicagoland area. (OK, so you get all the customers in IL, WI, and MI and then cut the list down to those within a 120 mile radius (2 hour drive) to your meeting and then invite them.) Getting IBM to do this was next to impossible for several reasons. None of the reasons were real. They were just excuses because they didn't want to do the leg work. Oh there's more to the story.... But the point is that when IBM asked for ideas, even if you give them a good one. Volunteer to help (I was still under NDA at the time...), they just don't want to do the work unless there's a direct correlation to a sale. But hey! What do I know? Oh yeah, more than IBM would want me to talk about in public. ;-) -G
Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > Its been a couple of years and I believe that some of the players have > moved on to a different role, but its a true story none the less. But > take it with a grain of salt. > > After I left IBM, I was involved in the local user group. > On a con-call with IBM and some of the other local user group > volunteers, we were looking for a way to increase awareness and > improve the local group's membership. > > We wanted to be able to reach out and talk to as many of the local > users as possible. The biggest issue is that we didn't know who, > outside the regular users were using Informix products. > > IBM has this database called AAS. This is the database used by support > to determine if you are entitled to support when you call in to the > 800 help line. > > It would be trivial to go to support and get the contact information > on all of the customers who have a physical plant in the Chicagoland > area. (OK, so you get all the customers in IL, WI, and MI and then cut > the list down to those within a 120 mile radius (2 hour drive) to your > meeting and then invite them.) > > Getting IBM to do this was next to impossible for several reasons. > > None of the reasons were real. They were just excuses because they > didn't want to do the leg work. Three reasons: Privacy, Privacy, Privacy! There are VERY strict controls on who gets to see which customer information even within IBM. Outside: Forget it! You may want to think back to the business conduct guidelines you had to sign every year while at IBM. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
> From: srielau@ca.ibm.com > > None of the reasons were real. They were just excuses because they > > didn't want to do the leg work. > Three reasons: Privacy, Privacy, Privacy! > > There are VERY strict controls on who gets to see which customer > information even within IBM. Outside: Forget it! > > You may want to think back to the business conduct guidelines you had to > sign every year while at IBM. > LOL! Serge, you too funny. So what you're saying is that IBM field support and sales staff can't get access to their customers in their territory? (Actually they could go through AAS or through Siebel, abeit Siebel is harder because the interface is carp.) Sorry Serge that one fails the sniff test. The truth is that they would get the customer names, but would then have to work their way through the system to get the client team and the correct contact person. This takes time and effort. A lot of effort. As to working with me... Are you telling me that IBM doesn't include Business Partners on client calls? ;-) Again, it doesn't pass the smell test. The point of the story wasn't to embarass those involved, just to show you that not everyone is willing to do what it takes to make things happen. _________________________________________________________________ Need to know now? Get instant answers with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_062008
"So what you're saying is that IBM field support and sales staff can't get access to their customers in their territory?" Here they can... "On a con-call with IBM and some of the other local user group volunteers, we were looking for a way to increase awareness and improve the local group's membership." ...Here they cannot. That is what privacy is all about. Giving information to people who need to know. The local user group has no business cold calling IBM customers who don't identify themselves to it or who haven't at least ticked the appropriate check mark. In this very group there are regular rants about the information people need to fill out on IBM websites. Why is that? Just because of the extra typing? No! People and customers take privacy seriously and so must IBM. I was not at this meeting of yours of course and am not privy to what you were told, but in my opinion had your group gotten that information some IBMer would have turned into a non-IBMer in no-time flat. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
On Jun 30, 1:31 pm, Serge Rielau <srie...@ca.ibm.com> wrote: > "So what you're saying is that IBM field support and sales staff can't > get access to their customers in their territory?" > Here they can... > > "On a con-call with IBM and some of the other local user group > volunteers, we were looking for a way to increase awareness and > improve the local group's membership." > ...Here they cannot. > > That is what privacy is all about. Giving information to people who need > to know. > The local user group has no business cold calling IBM customers who > don't identify themselves to it or who haven't at least ticked the > appropriate check mark. > > In this very group there are regular rants about the information people > need to fill out on IBM websites. Why is that? Just because of the extra > typing? No! > People and customers take privacy seriously and so must IBM. > LOL... Serge, you missed the point. First, the field people don't know anything about AAS or how support for their products work. (Unless they have a customer with a crit-sit and they then sit silently on the con-call taking notes. Second. Those on the call were IBMers for the most part, and two other people. A reseller, and moi, a recent escapee from the belly of the beast, affectionately known to some as the "blue pig". If you want to know the truth, I know about 80% of the companies that are using / OEMing IDS in Chicago, or were using it. (When your start date with Informix is in '89, you tend to know your local community.) But while I know the companies, I don't know who is doing what within the company. Its easier for the IT Specialists who cover the territory to identify the Client Rep (even the dot Com reps) that cover the territory and communicate with them. But that takes some leg work. The sales team could have used Siebel, but that piece of shit system is way too slow to be effective and its not as accurate as AAS. This is not a knock on Siebel, just the way IBM implemented Siebel. (Maybe it was really slow cause they had one major instance for all of the corporation and it was running on DB2?) 8^() :-p The point Serge was that we were willing to go with the IT Specialist and do a meet and greet with these clients. In other words, the problem (pain) was that local IBM team did not know who or what were using IDS, nor when told, did they want to do the work to find out. > I was not at this meeting of yours of course and am not privy to what > you were told, but in my opinion had your group gotten that information > some IBMer would have turned into a non-IBMer in no-time flat. > What I was told serge was that they were "too busy". Even when I volunteered to take time out of my day to meet with some of these clients. Oh and before you poo-poo this... Remember that IBM does take BPs on sales calls when necessary, so there goes your privacy argument. Like I said, I could over time recall about 80% of the companies that at one time ran IDS. Including Prarie Group which runs SAP on Oracle for their accounting, but had one instance of IDS/4GL for this specialized application they purchased. (Of course this may have changed since Prarie Group was sold recently) Speaking of "privacy" maybe I should retell a story about a certain bank located in Chicago? Do the letters NT mean anything to you? Now that was a fine fun day where the shite hit the fan. Oh but you're right. That *was* a DB2 story and not an IDS story. Yeah Serge, I know a lot of stories ... ;-) -G